The USCIS, the agency primarily responsible for adjudicating immigration petitions for foreign workers, also is looking more critically at immigration applications, administratively narrowing certain foreign worker classifications, such as L-1B, which involves workers with specialized knowledge, and even second-guessing the validity of labor certifications approved by the Department of Labor as part of the green card process, according to Robert S. Groban Jr. ?...

"There's been a real sea change in the way the USCIS discharges its adjudicative responsibilities as the enforcement mentality has seeped into the way it's doing things," he said. "It's threatening to deny DOL cases even though it doesn't seem to have the statutory authority to do that ?... and it's narrowing worker categories, causing companies to abandon [their efforts to get specialized workers] and handle more business outside the country." ?...

"We have an aging workforce and we lag seriously behind other countries in producing Americans with advanced science, technology, engineering and math degrees," he said. "Without immigration reform, businesses are not going to set up or remain in the U.S. because they can't get qualified people, and instead they are going to operate abroad where the necessary talent is located. We've always had an advantage in innovation, but we are dangerously close to losing our competitive advantage because, in part, of our restrictive and outdated immigration laws."